"With over 3 million downloads per episode, the HBO hit series Game of Thrones is without doubt the most pirated TV-show of the season. Data gathered by TorrentFreak shows that most of the pirates come from Australia, while London tops the list of pirate cities. But why have these people turned to BitTorrent?" Because in order to get it legally, I have to take a monthly subscription costing me €15 per month. So instead, I buy the season box sets as they come out, and download them every Monday morning in the meantime.

You are right arpan, the business model looks outdated. I would have bought much more media myself if it would be accessible in digital form under reasonable cost and constraints.

However be reminded that it is the cable network providers that do the financing of these series, to the extend that they decide which ones get produced or not. It is natural for the rightholders then to give priority to the cable networks and not infer in their business models by selling the episodes "early". You may call this stupid, I prefer the word "outdated", but that's how the system currently works and I assume you cannot produce a series like this with Kickstarter just as of today.

All I wanted to point out is the stark self-justification that seeps from the comments here. It sounds like as if people would have no chance other than pirating to survive.

I am not sure if it is correct to call this a "pirating". You download episode by episode as they are released. OK. Now after season is finished you go and by a boxset even if you have already seen all the episodes. So where is piracy in this? If you won't buy a boxset at the end then sure, but in this instance there should be a new term for it. Postpay? (-.